Page 60 of Scandalously Yours

“Think about our children, Hayley. Karter and Kaylee will grow up without their mother. Is that what you really want?”

“You’ll never take them from me,” she swore vehemently to him.

“I won’t if you end this. Put the gun down, and let me help you.”

I had no idea if he was being genuine about that. I knew how much he truly hated this woman, and how he didn’t want her near the kids. Maybe she’d been on drugs for a while and would be different once she went to a rehab center. Either that or a mental hospital. The latter seemed more fitting for the blonde maniac right now.

“You can’t help me or her,” she told him as she pointed the weapon directly at me and fingered the trigger.

“You don’t have to do this, Hayley. Put the—”

Everything happened so fast. I was standing there one second, then was pushed roughly to the ground in the next. I barely had a second to breathe before a gunshot rang out. At first, time seemed to stand still. A split second later, both me and Hayley screamed as Kristopher staggered on his feet. Then, he fell back against the dumpster. His head bounced off the metal edge and he fell lifelessly to the ground.

“Kris,” I breathed, then uncaring about my own life, crawled quickly over to him. I was a doctor, but trying to remember anything from my training was useless at this point. I heard something clang as it hit the cement and saw Hayley pick up her gun. The look of shock on her face was one I’d never forget if I managed to live through this. She stuffed it into her purse, then bolted from the alley.

She needed to be caught, but it looked like she had spared me after all. I needed to tend to Kristopher. Shaking him, I tried to revive him, but he was completely out. I scrubbed my hands down my face and swiped quickly at my tears. I checked for the gunshot wound and located it at the top of his shoulder. His entire left side of his shirt was soaked, and I knew from the rapidly increasing puddle of thick, warm blood underneath him that the bullet had gone right through him.

“Miss, Miss...” someone called out to me as he entered the alley.

“Call an ambulance,” I begged, then turned back to the love of my life.

I immediately set forth tearing at his shirt knowing I needed to apply pressure to the bullet wound. I also knew to check for both entrance and exit wound so I hefted him up the best that I could as I found the source of the extensive bleeding. Judging from the looks of the holes, I could surmise that she had a .45 caliber pistol.

Blood loss was the leading cause of death in gunshot victims, so I knew I needed to stop the bleeding to give him any chance of surviving this. I gathered up the torn fabric and balled a few pieces of them in each hand, then applied as much pressure as I could to both of the wounds. In addition to the gunshot, he had hit his head hard on the dumpster and I could still see his blood as it dripped off of the dark blue metal container. It also dripped from the wound on his head, soaking my dress completely.

“Kris, baby,” I cried. “Please wake up.”

He was so still, yet his body was warm, and I could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Granted, it was very labored, but he was alive nonetheless. I pressed harder against his wounds, ignoring the blood that had soaked both pieces of fabric and my hands.

I kissed the top of his head as I rocked back and forth and held him against me. “You have to be okay. Please come back to me, Kris. I—" I was getting choked up, and more terrified with every passing second. Where in the hell was the ambulance? Why was it taking so long? “You can’t die on me, Kris. I love you so much. Please let me know you’re okay.”

The scream of sirens pierced the distance and when the wailing of them grew louder, I knew the paramedics were on their way. Soon, the flashing of red and blue lights lit up the entire area as both an ambulance and several patrol cars arrived on the scene. Three men rushed toward me with a stretcher.

“I’m a doctor,” I tried to tell them, but he was pulled away from me as they began to tend to his wounds. Four police officers followed behind them, and one of the men helped me off of the ground. I pulled the damp, sticky bottom of my dress off of my legs, then I looked down and saw all the blood. There was so much, and it had all come from Kristopher.

Never having been squeamish before, the old adage of there being a first time for everything proved to be true because it made something inside of my chest come up. I suddenly turned away from what I knew would be evidence and threw up. I violently heaved over and over for several seconds until nothing else came out, then I turned in time to see them wheel Kristopher’s lifeless body away from the scene and toward the waiting ambulance. The men were barking out things to one another, yet I couldn’t hear them clearly enough to figure out what they were saying. A desperate need to follow him took over.

“I need to go with him,” I told the four officers, then went to run toward the ambulance, but the same man that had just helped me up, held me back.

“Are you in his immediate family?” he asked, and I shook my head.

“No, but I’m—”

“Then you can’t go with him. In fact, we have some questions to ask you,” he started to say until I looked at him incredulously.

“I have to make sure he’s all right,” I pleaded, unable to comprehend the very idea of my having to stay in this alley while he could be dying. I began to sob even louder. “Please. Let me go. I need—”

“He’s in good hands, Miss. They’re taking him to Weill Cornell which is a level one trauma center. They can do more for him there than you can. Let the professionals do what they need to do while we find out what happened here.”

I knew that they were right, and that this was simply part of their job. Sometimes, the police would interview patients, or others, about different things at the hospital. There were even times when an arrest would be made with the patient still in their bed. When I had woken up this morning and agreed to go for coffee, I had never imagined it would end this way. The ramifications of what that choice might’ve cost me began to sink in, only managing to upset me further. It was still too hard to fathom but Kristopher had literally taken a bullet for me.

“It was meant for me,” I mumbled aloud to the men.

“What? The bullet?” one of the officers asked.

I nodded. Tears came streaming down my face as I realized what he had done for me. People often joked about taking a bullet for someone, but he literally had. If that wasn’t love, then I didn’t know what was. It made the tears already streaming down my cheeks intensify.

“I need to know how he is,” I reiterated once again.

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